This month on Twitter, @sotachetan hosts #BrandedInSongs – which is a head-on collision of my personal world of music and my professional world of branding and advertising. The challenge is to simply pick a song with a brand name in its lyrics or title. I added one more criteria to my picks, which is this: the songs themselves must be as iconic as the brands they mention. No filler here.
This week, Sheryl Crow was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I couldn’t fathom how she made it, but Joy Division / New Order and Soundgarden didn’t. Then I heard this song for the first time in decades, and I got it. I realized it. Before the Shania Twains and Faith Hills, Sheryl Crow was the female singer-songwriter who was blending genres seamlessly where you can’t even see the lines. “All I Wanna Do” was her induction to alternative and mainstream fan audiences alike.
I think it’s worth pausing there for a second to let that soak in. Alternative radio stations were playing this song. So were mainstream pop stations. But the song is resolutely country to the bone with its melody and iconic rhythmic guitar musings. It also borrows a page out of Lou Reed and Bob Dylan with its speak-singing approach. As a college kid, my musical tastes at the time leaned grungy, but I still couldn’t help myself, picking up my Tuesday Night Music Club CD. Hearing it for the first time, I had no regrets. Sheryl Crow just might be more influential than many of us think. At least the Rock & Roll HOF committee seem to think so.
“They drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks Back to the phone company, the record store too.